


Final Moments

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Mariners Revenge Song (song)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:59:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After fifteen years of waiting, the widow's daughter finally gets her hands on the captain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Moments

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to say that I had not heard of this song before Yuletide, and now I'm addicted to its weirdness. So, thanks. ;) (And thanks to magicnoire for being my beta!)
> 
> Written for allie

 

 

The monks at the priory told me once that a woman's place was at home, waiting for her man to return from the sea, a patient smile on her face and a child in her belly. They told me that revenge was ungodly, and that, like all things important and worldly, it must be left to the men-folk.

I think they would cringe over their rosaries if they saw me now.

A flat piece of board, as long as a child's height, had washed into the belly of the whale at the same time I had. I'd used it to strap down the only other remaining survivor, tying his hands above his head and lashing them to the underside of the board, to the knots I'd dragged around his feet. He arched over the broken planking like a fleshy bow, his breathing heavy and ragged in the hot, moist cavern of hell that we'd both landed in.

Inside the belly of a whale, just like Jonah. Only, Jonah emerged from the belly alive and whole, and I planned very differently for the darling captain. 

I could tell the instant he came awake - he jerked on the board, groaning. It was impossible to see anything in the darkness, but I'd felt the large lump on his skull and knew it was a bad injury, but by no means a fatal one. So when he startled awake and jerked, coughing, I slid my light body over his, straddling him at the waist like I would a lover.

"Hello darling," I purred in my best seductive voice, one that I'd heard the whores use many a time before, but had never had the chance to use myself. I coiled a damp lock of my hair around my finger as I waited for him to respond.

He stiffened underneath me, and I could tell he was trying to figure out where he was - trying to place the slimy, vaguely burning slosh of water around us, the painful stretch of his hands and feet over the splintered wood, the oppressive, too-moist stink of the air, the slippery walls that left far too little room for us to move about.

Cozy, I thought. Perfect, I thought, but I might have been mad with glee.

"Where am I?" he sputtered, his raspy voice demanding as the board bobbed and a wave of stomach acid slapped him in the face. He coughed and shuddered at that, spewing the vile acid forth on my face. Like I cared. I wore a mad grin from ear to ear, even in the slick darkness.

"We are two mariners, our ships' sole survivors, in this belly of a whale," I sang out to him, my voice light and high. I dragged a finger across his mouth, noting the fleshy swell of his lips. 

"Billy?" He jerked underneath me.

"Not a boy, silly," I crooned at him, delighted as I wiggled my hips atop the curve of his own. So he thought I was a cabin boy? How very funny. "Don't you know who I am, darling Captain Jacobs?"

The thick body between my legs stilled its thrashing. "How do you know my name?"

I dug my fingernail into his lip, leaned over and let my long wet hair drag across his face. "We go way back, you and I. Dear, dear captain. Does the name `Rosalie' sound familiar?"

By his silence, I could tell that he was completely blank, and it angered me. I pulled out the delicate knife hidden in my boot and splayed my other hand across his face, drumming my long fingernails on his skin. His jaw flexed, as if he wanted to bite my fingers, and I giggled. The thought of him fighting back excited me, and I scraped the tip of the knife against the edge of his cheek, following the length of my finger in the darkness.

To have all this power over his final hours - it was intoxicating. I wished that I had caught up with him years ago. The anticipation in my body made my thighs flex against his pelvis, and I heard his sharp intake of breath, like a lover's. I bent over him, my small breasts brushing against his filth-dampened shirt. "You may not remember me," I whispered against his cheek. "I was a child of three, and you a lad of eighteen." I slid the point of the knife along the corners of his mouth, not cutting, just toying, imagining the hot fan of his breath against the blade. 

"But I remember you," I purred, grinding my hips against his again. "And I will relate to you how our histories interweave. Would you like that?"

His throat worked - I could feel it - as if he were trying to swallow and could not, not with me and my knife perched over him like a waiting bird of prey. I laughed again at the heady sensation, and leaned in to kiss his mouth, biting at his lip. He tasted like whale bile and blood - just like I did - and I licked his lips, savoring the taste. "I remember you, Captain Jacobs. Back when you were a rake and a roustabout. You had a charming air back then, all cheap and debonair."

"You're crazy," he rasped against my mouth when I dove in again with my mouth, my hips grinding like that of the most expert whore. "Get off of me."

I slapped his cheek lightly with my knife, ignoring his words and the way his arms strained against the knots. I'd tied them well - my time as a deck-hand on a pirate ship had come in handy. "Do you remember my dear sweet widowed mother? Abigail Burrows? No? I should not be surprised. You were young back then, but I was young too and I still remember it vividly." I slid the blade of the knife into his mouth an inch, teasing between his teeth. 

He grew very still underneath me, his breath shallow.

In response, my own breath grew excited and raspy, my lungs heaving as I struggled to suck in lungfuls of the too-thick, too-moist air in the whale's belly. "Do you remember that you gave my mother the pox? The French pox? No," I said before he could respond, sliding my knife back out and toying with it along his chin. "I suppose you gave that to a lot of women in many ports. Perhaps you remember a sweet blonde with a young daughter that took you in? And how you married her and gambled all her money away within a matter of weeks?"

He grew very still beneath me.

"Your memory returns," I crooned. "I remember when you disappeared, your gambling in arrears." I propped my elbow against his chest, ignoring the hot slop of the waters against our bodies, as if we were having a chatty conversation in bed. Like lovers. "Come to think of it, that was the only thing you left behind. That and the French pox, of course." I swung my leg over the side, pulling off of his body and descending into the waist-deep, clinging waters, and slid my knife down his pants to his crotch. "How many ladies do you suppose you gave it to over the years?"

He cleared his throat, coughing. "I don't have the pox--"

"I didn't ask you to argue with me," I said, digging the tip of the knife into his balls. That shut him up right quick. Such a tender thing, a man's balls. On the streets, I'd learned quickly that the merest touch there could bring a man low. So strong and so vulnerable compared to my own slim body with its small breasts, lean waist, and long legs made for running. "This is my story, and I've been waiting fifteen years to tell you all about it."

He didn't respond, and that made me sad. Pouty. I wanted to play. So I dug the knife a little deeper, cutting into his flesh. "Did you hear me, Captain Jacobs? Don't you want to hear my story?"

"Yes..." The growl was low, hoarse. Almost as if he was afraid to respond. Afraid not to respond, afraid to respond. Good. I liked it when he was afraid. It excited me, made my pulse burn hot in low places.

"Anyhow," I began again, circling the small raft in the thick, viscous waters. They stank, my breath stank, and I was damp and disgusting and reeked of whale and dead fish and stomach bile and I didn't care. My seeking hand reached out in the darkness and grasped his shirt, pulling him and the raft closer to me again. My fingers sought out his face, brushing over it, and the thick scar that ran from his eyebrow to his chin in a straight gouge - the scar he'd told my mother that he'd been given as a small boy, beaten by his father. The scar that I'd recognized when my seeking fingers had sought the other survivor in the darkness, and the scar that told me my luck had managed to hold for a wee bit longer.

I loved that scar. I wanted to carve him another.

"Tell me more," he whispered in the musty darkness. I couldn't tell if it was because he truly wanted to hear more, or if he was simply worried that I'd cut him again. Either way, I didn't care.

"My mother was quite unhappy when you left, you know," I said in an almost bored tone. The knife in my hand was bored too, so I traced it along his damp thigh, letting it explore other places that we might cut soon. Very soon. So impatient, my knife. "And then the magistrate reclaimed our small estate. To pay for your debts, of course. Not ours. It made my poor mother lose her mind." I smiled at that. "I dare say that I lost a piece of mine that day as well. Wouldn't you say so?"

"I'd say you're a damn crazy bitch."

"Is that how you talk to a lady?" I patted his leg with my friendly, thirsty blade. "No compliment for my long hours of work? After all, I toiled long and hard to be this crazy. It took many years."

"So how is your dear mother?" Strain marred his voice, as if he were flexing his muscles, trying to escape the bonds I had put on him.

"She's dead. Has been for some time." My voice became flat, and the urge to cut him grew stronger, but I forced myself to hold back. Not yet. Just a wee bit longer. "Do you want to know what she said to me before she died, Captain Jacobs? That dear, sweet woman who loved you so much? Who was so heartbroken when you left her?"

"Not really."

I ignored his wishes. "She told me: `Find him. Bind him. Tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters. Drag him to a hole until he wakes up naked, clawing at the ceiling of his grave." After I recited the words that had been the first thing on my mind when I awoke every morning for the past fifteen years, I smiled into the fishy, dank darkness. "This will do quite well for a grave, won't it?"

The captain did not respond. That was all right, too. I didn't really need to hear his voice at the moment. The belly of the fish was so dark, so smothering that I knew my voice rang in his ears, even if he didn't want to hear it.

"Took me fifteen years," I said lightly, sliding off the edge of the raft. My boots slipped on the muscled, slippery stomach of the whale, and I used the edge of the raft to support my weight. "Fifteen years to swallow all my tears. In the meantime, I lived on the streets, ate out of garbage, sold my body to earn a few coins here and there. After all, I'd had a good family name and money, or at least I had until you were done with my poor mother." I slid the knife into my left hand, using the right to flutter along the splintered edges of the half-submerged raft, down to where I'd tied the knots around his hands.

His hands were fisted tight, fingers clenched as if he knew what I was up to.

"One of the monks at the nearby priory took pity and hired me to keep their vestry nice and neat. I guess they thought a girl alone in the world needed a strong man to look after her after all." My mouth twisted into a slight grin at the thought, and I skimmed my fingers over his knotted ones. "Isn't that just like a man?"

My captive remained silent. I chuckled at his cowardice. Sweet captain. Sweet, stupid captain. Like silence was going to stop me.

"The monks tried to change me," I told him, wedging the tip of my knife between his tightly-clenched fingers. "Tried to put me in clean dresses, teach me manners. One of them even tried to find me a husband. But I'm afraid I was un-teachable. The only thing that I had on my mind was you, dear captain, and breaking your fingers to splinters. Isn't that a shame? Think of what I could have been, if I wasn't so obsessed with you. I might have been a great lady instead of waiting to die in the belly of a whale." I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "I did learn how to butcher a fat hog, though. That's coming in right handy today."

With that, I jerked backward on the knife in the darkness, sawing into bone, slicing through tiny finger muscles. He screamed, thrashing against his bonds. I kept sawing in the darkness, my eyes wild. I wished I could see his pain, see him struggling - all I could feel was the churning of the waters and his skin as it thrashed against my own. With the edge of my knife, I sliced again and dug, removing his smallest finger. A weight lifted off my shoulders, a weight there since my mother had died, and I tossed the liberated appendage into the filth-water surrounding us. 

"Why are you doing this?" he cried, his voice gone hoarse with pain.

"You know why I'm doing this," I said cheerfully, licking the edge of my knife. Stomach bile and blood. Bits of something chewy and warm peppered the blade and I spat them away, licking its smooth edge clean for the next sweet cut.

"How did you find me?"

"Great story, really." I leaned back over him, feeling an absurd surge of pleasure as his entire body knitted and braced again, waiting for the pain I'd inflict. "One night I overheard the prior exchanging words with a penitent whaler from the sea. The captain of his ship - who matched you toe to tip, right down to the scar - was known for wanton cruelty." Slice, slice - again I let the knife dance along his remaining fingers. "And I said to myself, `Darling Rosalie, who is the nastiest man you can think of with a long scar crossing his face?' And I thought of you."

Just remembering the joyful glee of his discovery brought a low quiver of pleasure.

"You were so close - I knew I had to follow." I set the knife down on his stomach and stretched my arms, then began to twist my damp curls into a girlish knot, just like the fine ladies did. Twist, twist. "Sought out a ship on the docks, but no one was willing to take on a girl. Girls are bad luck at sea, remember? No one wanted a lovely like me." I pouted again, remembering. "I had to bribe a privateer captain with my mouth. Once I figured out what he really wanted, well, it was easy to get on the ship." I gave my dripping hair one last twist and then released it, sighing. "After that, it was nothing but dreadful boy clothing and wool caps to cover my hair and pretending I was a boy. Do you know how many men really thought I was a boy?" I picked up the knife again, traced his skin where the vee between my legs met his body. "None of them. But no one would dare to argue with the captain, so I stayed."

My precious darling captain was deadly silent, so I moved my fluttering blade back to his fingers, wedging it in their slick grasp again. "The following day I shipped out to sea with the privateer," I told him. "And in the whistle of the wind I could almost hear my mother's voice, encouraging me. I knew I'd made the right decision then." I sliced another finger off, noticing with disappointment that he groaned low in his throat, but did not reward me with a scream. I'd have to draw the next one out, make it far more painful.

"Told my captain all about you," I added, just to spite him. "About the rich whaler named The Good Bess with a cargo hold full of gold. Bit of a lie, but he's not here to whip me for fibbing. Chased you for twenty months, we did. And then that fateful night, we had you in our sight, your starboard flank abeam. I was getting my muskets clean when this rumbling came from beneath. The ocean shook, the sky went black and my captain quailed. And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale..." 

My breath caught in my throat at the memory. Of panic, shock and disorientation leading to bitter disappointment. "Thought I'd died and not had a chance to see you one last time."

I had to blink back tears at the upsetting thought. Luckily, my sweet captain was here with my now, and I leaned in to bite his chin, licking at his salty flesh. "Don't know how I survived. Rest of the crew all was chewed alive. Me being a thin girl and all, I must have slipped between his teeth. But oh! What providence! What divine intelligence! That you should survive as well as me." I slid my legs over him again, straddling his prostrate body. I leaned over to kiss his bulging mouth, ignoring when he tried to bite me. "It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear," I whispered against his cheek, even though I could not see his eyes to prove my statement. "Now lean in close, darling, and I will soon whisper the last words you'll hear."

"You filthy bitch," he said, and spat at me. "We're both going to die down here."

"I know. Isn't that lovely," I said, sliding the knife along his cheek. "Poor, dear captain. Don't worry. You've still got eight fingers to go before the true fun can begin." 

And with that, I began to cut again.

As if my mother's ghost were smiling down on me and my deed, the remaining air in the whale's stomach lasted a lot longer than the darling captain did. 

 


End file.
